The Soul Survivors Series Boxed Set

by Vella Munn

  Margarita wanted to tell Lucita that only madness could ac« count for what she'd done yesterday and the way she was talking right now, but maybe it wasn't that after all. Maybe the need to hold onto sanity had been responsible.

  "You're back," she said with a sob. "That's all that matters."

  "No, it doesn't. I..." Lucita's voice fell off and Margarita wondered if her daughter was going to cry, but then she began to speak again.

  "I went to the sea," she said. "Almost, anyway. And I saw... I know why my father didn't look for me."

  She'd been about to say something about what she'd seen out there, but either thoughts of her father had intruded or she'd deliberately changed the subject.

  "He insisted you'd return when you were hungry," Margarita said. "I begged him to find you because of the wild Indians and animals, but he wouldn't listen."

  "Did you expect it to be any different?"

  There was something new and unfathomable in her daughter's voice. Pushing back, she looked into Lucita's tired but still-beautiful eyes. "No," she said. "I did not."

  Lucita sighed. "But he was right. I had to return. I had no choice."

  "Are you going to tell him?"

  "No. Not yet."

  * * *

  Much Rain snored in Willow's ear, waking her from her nap. Sitting up, she looked down at her husband. They'd made love a little while ago, and from experience she knew he wouldn't wake until bodily needs made their presence known.

  They'd been waiting for Black Wolf since yesterday, and although the men were content to sit doing nothing until he returned, her hands and legs didn't know how to be idle. After relieving herself in the bushes, she took in her surroundings, irritated to see that not a single Chumash warrior was awake.

  Men! They did so little work! When Much Rain shifted position and reached out his hand to where she'd been, her thoughts softened. He might have no understanding of what it took to constantly prepare food, care for children, and help ready the village for winter, but no one was a better fisherman and together they had explored the delights of what it meant to be a married man and woman.

  Just the same, she had no one to talk to and nothing to do. When she was a child, there'd been her sister to spend her days with, but about the time Black Wolf returned Oak Leaf had gone to the mission to sell a pair of moccasins she'd made, never to return. It was said that Oak Leaf had allowed herself to be baptized and now was highly prized as a seamstress. Although Willow never told anyone this, she was curious about Oak Leaf's life and whether she ever thought of her childhood with her sister.

  Willow and the warriors were far enough away from the mission that they could talk and she and Much Rain could make love without fear of being overheard. If she moved swiftly, she could approach the mission, see if she could easily spot her sister, and return before her husband woke up. Apprehension clutched at her as she contemplated the risks of what she wanted to do. Black Wolf had insisted they wait until he returned and it was night to go after the foodstuffs because it was all but impossible for six adults to remain unobserved, but one—

  In the end, Willow's memories made her decision for her. After placing a light kiss on Much Rain's forehead, she slipped away. Because she'd gathered birds' eggs under the adult birds' sharp eyes, she knew how to move slowly and carefully, but it was hard to concentrate on that when she thought of what she would say to her sister if she saw her.

  Once Willow was close enough that she could hear the neophytes in the garden, she lay on her stomach for a long time while trying to gather her courage around her, but although she now realized that a number of women were working among the rows of corn, she couldn't see them.

  Pressing her hand against her stomach, she vowed that her and Much Rain's child would be born with courage in his heart because not just his father, but his mother as well, had taken risks.

  "Oak Leaf, your little sister is no longer a child," she whispered. "She is a married woman about to become a mother. I want you to know that and to learn if you have children of your own and are happy."

  Oak Leaf couldn't possibly be happy, could she? Willow wondered as she crawled closer and closer to the sweet-smelling corn. If it was true that Oak Leaf spent her days sewing for the padres, she wouldn't be outside, but maybe one of the laboring women knew her and could relay a message.

  Saddened by the thought that she might not see Oak Leaf after all, Willow rose to a crouching position. For the first time she was able to see legs and arms and even bent heads. The neophyte women's clothing was in a state of disrepair, but a number of them wore hide blouses and skirts like her, a fact that held her motionless as she worked her idea around in her mind. It wasn't unheard of for a Chumash warrior to adorn himself like one of the neophytes in order to move about them. Why not her?

  Her heart felt as if it had become lodged in her throat, but she hadn't seen her sister in five winters and might never again be this close to her. Standing, she looked all around, assuring herself that there were no leatherjackets about. Then, her bare feet treading lightly on the summer-hot ground, she walked toward the neophytes.

  * * *

  From where he sat on the top of the turkey coop Mundo Uriarte watched the young woman. The soldier couldn't say when he'd first spotted her; maybe it was the way she conducted herself that had initially caught his attention. Unlike Corporal Sebastian, Mundo was no newcomer to this post and knew who belonged and who didn't. The squaw didn't. Smiling, he jumped down and began making his way toward the cornfield. The female neophytes were his for the taking; hadn't he just had his way with one last night? However, mounting one of them provided no challenge and damn little satisfaction. It had to be different with the savages; he'd long wanted to test his theory, and what better opportunity than this? It mattered not at all what she was doing here or whether she'd come alone or with others, because he wasn't stupid like Turi. Turi—he couldn't even remember the man's first name—had dragged his squaw into the bushes, which had been all the opportunity the animal called Black Wolf had needed to exact his brand of revenge.

  But Mundo knew to take the woman in the middle of the rows of corn because no savage, not even Black Wolf, would risk being discovered and the neophytes wouldn't lift a finger to stop him from having his fun.

  As for the squaw—

  Reaching the first cornstalk, Mundo pulled his knife free just in case. Then, his organ already pulsing in anticipation, he lengthened his stride.

  Chapter 12

  The land was alive with the sounds of crickets and other insects, but despite that, Black Wolf heard the faint howl of his spirit that accompanied the waves of power and courage now washing through him and gave his heartfelt thanks. Strengthened anew, he ran like a deer, like a coyote, alive, more animal than human.

  Measuring time by the beats of his heart, he eventually reached the harsh rock outcropping above the hated scar on what had once been his ancestors' hunting grounds and announced himself by pulling an owl's call from deep inside him. His greeting was immediately answered, not by the long single note that would have told him that all was well but by a series of quick yelps like those of a frightened dog. Alarmed, he closed his hand around his knife.

  The small hollow behind the rocks held no light, but because his senses were as keen as his namesake's, he quickly determined that all were there. He wanted to believe he had overreacted, but then he smelled the blood.

  "What is it?" Although low, his voice sang with concern, and he cursed himself for having been gone so long.

  "Willow," came the too-simple answer.

  Much Rain spoke from the ground; Black Wolf dropped to his knees and reached out until he found a strong male arm. "What happened?"

  "Leatherjackets." Much Rain sounded nothing like his usual lighthearted self. In the time Black Wolf had been gone, his friend had aged and pain had become part of him.

  "Willow? She is dead?"

  "N-o."

  This wavering voice couldn't possibly belong
to Willow—he didn't want it to be her—but he had known her too long and shared too many conversations with her to convince himself otherwise. Releasing Much Rain, he scooted closer. His searching fingers found another arm, this one smaller, softer, and stripped of the muscle that had made Willow a valuable member of the tribe.

  He wanted to hear her speak again because everything he needed to know might be in her words, but maybe every breath and heartbeat she possessed was needed to remain alive. Taking her limp hand, he placed it against his chest and willed his own health to enter her.

  "What happened?" he asked.

  For too long no one spoke, but then Much Rain began. His clipped and hard warrior's voice reminded Black Wolf of a fox warning the enemy away from his mate.

  "Two leatherjackets have left, but we do not know how long they will be gone. My wife..." Much Rain's voice trailed off and he placed his hand first over his wife's breasts and then settling on her torn belly. "Thinking she might find her sister, she went into the cornfields. Brave, so brave, she would not remain behind."

  "I... I am not—"

  "Hush, my wife. Hold onto your strength."

  But there might not be enough. The smell of blood and Willow's inability to speak told Black Wolf that.

  The telling came slowly, one reluctant word after another, but finally he understood that Willow had been discovered by a leatherjacket. She'd tried to make the enemy believe she was a neophyte, but either her clothing had given her away or the leatherjacket had cared only that he'd found a woman alone.

  "He had his way with her." Much Rain spoke through clenched teeth, helplessness and rage barely held in check. "Again and again. He violated—"

  "My husband."

  "It is all right," Much Rain whispered as he took his wife in his arms. "And then he stabbed her here."

  Her belly—drenched in blood.

  "Chupu!"

  Although he regretted his outburst, Black Wolf would never regret calling on the Chumash god. He knew the extent of her injury and that the life inside her couldn't possibly have survived. Hurting, he again took Willow's now clammy hand and pressed it against his chest. He prayed to Chupu, to Wolf, to the 'alchuklash, shaman's who understood the heavens and the effect the heavens had on the life of his people.

  "My... baby," Willow whispered.

  Gone, Black Wolf mouthed. Despite the horrible truth, he tried to share his being with the young woman, to will her to live and one day be capable of carrying another child, but part of him remained with his warrior's heart, where the need for revenge beat, made strong by what Lucita had told him about her father's brand of justice. He sensed the same emotion in Much Rain and the others and knew that if they weren't careful, hatred might consume all of them.

  Much Rain was whispering to his wife, his voice deep and hard and yet soft, as if caressing her. Black Wolf prayed that Willow's violation hadn't taken too long and she hadn't been undone by fear and loneliness, but maybe the gods had been elsewhere then and hadn't heard her pleas.

  Maybe they had been at Humqaq with him.

  No, please! Surely I was not so selfish as to take all power for myself, not when she needed...

  Faint movement pulled him from unwanted thoughts and self-hatred, but when he focused on what was happening, he wished he had remained in prayer. Much Rain had leaned forward and was pressing his lips against his wife's. Willow's fingers were limp in his; all muscle and bone seemed to have been stripped from them.

  Much Rain groaned, the sound that of a man who had had his heart ripped from him, who had ceased to be human and now embraced what it was to be animal. He straightened, then leaned forward again, bending his back so he could kiss that place where his child had been growing.

  Black Wolfs eyes burned; heat surged through him like a lightning-caused forest fire, and yet he didn't feel like crying. Desperate, he massaged Willow's fingers, but there was no response. When she left them for another place he couldn't say; maybe she had died one nerve at a time, fighting for both herself and her unborn infant.

  "Willow! Come back!"

  Shaken out of himself, Black Wolf grabbed his friend's arm and prevented him from jumping to his feet. "Stay with her," he insisted. "Her spirit needs you."

  Much Rain struggled, but his body lacked the strength it needed to break free. Finally, sobbing, the young brave clutched his wife to him and began rocking back and forth like a father comforting a child. Black Wolf stroked his friend's hot shoulder, placed his fingers against the back of his neck, and probed until he found the hard knot there. Using the same motions his wife did when she ministered to his sore muscles, he kneaded and massaged, and at length Much Rain's body no longer felt as if it might shatter.

  "She did not die alone." Black Wolf was forced to whisper because his throat had been gripped by a powerful hand. "You were with her."

  "I should have been with her earlier! Should not have let her go alone!"

  "No. No."

  "I tried... She was crawling to me when I found her. I carried her, prayed for her, but Chupu did not answer."

  Maybe because he was with me. Guilt slammed into Black Wolf until even whispering was beyond him. Still, he rocked with Much Rain as the warrior had just done for his dying wife, ran his fingers over Willow's face, and gently closed her eyes.

  "I will kill—"

  "Much Rain, no!" one of the others who'd been standing by called out. "You made a promise to her."

  A violent shudder tore through Much Rain, and Black Wolf wondered if they shared the same spasm, born from the same place and at the same time.

  "I made a vow to a living woman, but she is dead," Much Rain hissed. "And... so is our child."

  In his mind, Black Wolf saw a knife plunging into a softly rounded belly, heard the leatherjacket laugh, felt Willow's scream. If Chupu had been with her, two lives might not have ended today.

  "Much Rain, listen to me." His throat closed down and he had to swallow before he could speak again. "If you allow revenge to rule you, you, too, might die."

  "It does not matter. My heart is dead."

  "It will begin to beat again," he whispered. "The time will come when you once more hear the redwings and meadowlarks sing."

  "No."

  "Yes. Listen to me. Listen and believe. I was once dead because the padres had done that thing to me. My heart was no longer Chumash, but that changed because those I loved and who loved me surrounded me. The same will happen for you."

  He readied himself for another argument, but Much Rain said nothing, only breathed deep and quick like a man who had tried to outrun a deer. Black Wolf couldn't say why he'd been so determined to take his friend away from himself and the grief that waited for him but didn't regret what he'd done.

  The enemy didn't like to touch the dead. As soon as life left someone, the body was treated as if it had never existed, thrown into the ground and quickly covered. It might be different one padre to another or if a leatherjacket lost someone he loved, but Black Wolf would never understand why the enemy turned their back on a dead Chumash when there was nothing to fear from death and the journey to the other world should not be done alone.

  Much Rain knew that even if he knew nothing else, he might hold his wife and unborn child until after the sun set and in the holding begin to heal himself. Respecting his friend's journey, Black Wolf left him, joining the others as they sat together in a tight, softly chanting group. He blended his voice to theirs in prayer but couldn't give himself entirely to the ceremony that was as old as his people. Before leaving them, he'd prayed to Wolf and Chupu that these people, his people, would be successful in their search for food.

  But then he'd gone to Humqaq to purify himself, had thought only of himself.

  Somehow he would atone for that.

  * * *

  When their prayers were over, Black Wolf gathered the four warriors around him. Seeing the look in his friend's eyes tore at him and fed his growing fury.

  "The leatherjacket who kil
led this woman will have boasted of his deed, and their corporal will have instructed his men to look for more savages," he warned. "When the others return, it will become even more dangerous for us. Her body must be taken to where it belongs. Only her body, not more Chumash."

  No one mentioned the child—not that they had to. Sounding exhausted, Much Rain again voiced his desire to do to his wife's killer what had been done to her.

  "Not today, my friend." Black Wolf held up the blanket he'd brought for his own body in case he died. "I could not bury my father as is our way, and that regret has never left me. You will never find peace if you do not follow the way of our ancestors. Return to the village of our childhood and carry her inside the sacred stone slabs. Dance the swordfish dance, sing to her, tend the night fire, dig her grave, and place her in it with the baby basket she made for your child."

  A strangled cry was Much Rain's only response.

  * * *

  A wolf was without equal. Created to hunt and kill, its keen senses made it possible for it to survive through the harshest winter, to run for hours in order to bring down large prey. Black Wolf breathed in those things that were precious about his spirit until he wondered if his arms and legs would ever tire. True, his head pounded and he felt confused, but that was all right because today he was a predator and nothing else.

  The drying cornstalks shook and rattled in the wind, but still he moved quietly, stealthily, confidently. Willow had no more need for Chupu, and he had pulled the god into him, turning his belief into a weapon.

  Several neophytes looked up, startled, as he approached them. One, a little girl, disappeared into the midst of the plants, but a heavyset woman regarded him with small, watery eyes.

  "Where is he?" Black Wolf asked. Maybe he should have explained himself more fully, but a predator doesn't speak.

  "The leatherjacket?" the woman asked, and yet he had the feeling she already knew whom he was talking about. "Is she dead?"

  So news of the rape and stabbing had reached all ears. Not surprised, he nodded.